Farbourne
Rear Admiral
Sorry if this question has been answered before, but it's something I was wondering.
Is there any formal definition of the terms "wing", "flight", "squadron", "group", etc., with regard to number of fighters or number of pilots? In Star Wars fiction I've seen fairly detailed definitions of the terms for both the Rebel Alliance and the Empire (e.g. in the Alliance, a "wing" is two fighters, and "flight" is two wings, a "squadron" is three flights (12 fighters), and an "air group" is several squadrons). Is there a corresponding formalization for the Confederation and Kilrathi, or is a "wing" just taken to mean "whatever fighters happen to fly together with the same objective in a given mission", a "squadron" to mean "whatever group of pilots stake out certain tables in the rec room", and an "air group" to mean "all the fighters on a given carrier"? How big is a "squadron" and an "air group"? Are they defined by the fighters they have available, or the pilots? Is there a 1-1 correspondence between pilots and fighters or not? (The movie implies that each pilot has his own fighter, but the games, and common sense, imply that a pilot is assigned to whatever fighter is available and relevant to the assigned mission).
Just from playing the games, here's what it seems like to me, although I welcome corrections from more well-read fans:
In WC1, a wing always seems to be two fighters, and a squadron looks to contain about 8 or 9 pilots or more (from the briefing room animations), although each squadron probably has more. We know the Claw has 3 (and later 4) squadrons, and about 100+ fighters or so (or at least that capacity), although it seems likely to me that a carrier (like modern aircraft carriers) probably carries fewer operational fighters than its maximum capacity at any given time, and that it probably has fewer pilots than operational fighters, because of mission speciality of different fighters and the need to provide pilots with fighters even when some fighters are damaged or down for maintenence.
In WC2, wings usually seem to contain two fighters, but there's at least one case where we see a wing of Epees with three fighters. The Concordia seems to have only one fighter "squadron" (led by Angel), which comprises her entire air group? In this case, the squadron must be very large, and seems to be a term to describe all the pilots on the Concordia.
In WC3 the Victory has one fighter squadron. We only see about eight or so pilots, and there are eight names on the killboard, but I assume that she probably has more pilots and fighters than we see in the game.
WC4 is a special case, so I won't draw any conclusions there.
WCP has wings of up to four or five fighters (what I would naturally call a "flight"), and the Midway carries 2 (and later 3) "squadrons" of roughly 12-20 or so pilots each? At least, that is what the killboard implies. I found it a little odd that the game implies that the Midway is bigger than your standard carrier, and is somewhat special because of her size and because she carries three squadrons instead of one or two, yet the Claw carried 3 or 4 several years before and was not that remarkable of a carrier. Maybe the Midway is just remarkable for being so big in peacetime?
Is there any formal definition of the terms "wing", "flight", "squadron", "group", etc., with regard to number of fighters or number of pilots? In Star Wars fiction I've seen fairly detailed definitions of the terms for both the Rebel Alliance and the Empire (e.g. in the Alliance, a "wing" is two fighters, and "flight" is two wings, a "squadron" is three flights (12 fighters), and an "air group" is several squadrons). Is there a corresponding formalization for the Confederation and Kilrathi, or is a "wing" just taken to mean "whatever fighters happen to fly together with the same objective in a given mission", a "squadron" to mean "whatever group of pilots stake out certain tables in the rec room", and an "air group" to mean "all the fighters on a given carrier"? How big is a "squadron" and an "air group"? Are they defined by the fighters they have available, or the pilots? Is there a 1-1 correspondence between pilots and fighters or not? (The movie implies that each pilot has his own fighter, but the games, and common sense, imply that a pilot is assigned to whatever fighter is available and relevant to the assigned mission).
Just from playing the games, here's what it seems like to me, although I welcome corrections from more well-read fans:
In WC1, a wing always seems to be two fighters, and a squadron looks to contain about 8 or 9 pilots or more (from the briefing room animations), although each squadron probably has more. We know the Claw has 3 (and later 4) squadrons, and about 100+ fighters or so (or at least that capacity), although it seems likely to me that a carrier (like modern aircraft carriers) probably carries fewer operational fighters than its maximum capacity at any given time, and that it probably has fewer pilots than operational fighters, because of mission speciality of different fighters and the need to provide pilots with fighters even when some fighters are damaged or down for maintenence.
In WC2, wings usually seem to contain two fighters, but there's at least one case where we see a wing of Epees with three fighters. The Concordia seems to have only one fighter "squadron" (led by Angel), which comprises her entire air group? In this case, the squadron must be very large, and seems to be a term to describe all the pilots on the Concordia.
In WC3 the Victory has one fighter squadron. We only see about eight or so pilots, and there are eight names on the killboard, but I assume that she probably has more pilots and fighters than we see in the game.
WC4 is a special case, so I won't draw any conclusions there.
WCP has wings of up to four or five fighters (what I would naturally call a "flight"), and the Midway carries 2 (and later 3) "squadrons" of roughly 12-20 or so pilots each? At least, that is what the killboard implies. I found it a little odd that the game implies that the Midway is bigger than your standard carrier, and is somewhat special because of her size and because she carries three squadrons instead of one or two, yet the Claw carried 3 or 4 several years before and was not that remarkable of a carrier. Maybe the Midway is just remarkable for being so big in peacetime?
) 
) - but in case of a scramble, I guess you don't have much choice if your "personal" fighter was FUBAR after your last sortie...
